Semir Zeki

Semir Zeki is a professor of neuroesthetics at University College London. His main interest is the organization of the primate visual brain. He published his first scientific paper in 1967. Since then he has written over 150 papers and four books: Splendours and Miseries of the Brain (2008), A Vision of the Brain (1993), Inner Vision: an exploration of art and the brain (1999) and La Quête de l’essentiel, which he co-authored with the late French painter Balthus (Count Klossowski de Rola). In 1994, he began to study the neural basis of creativity and the aesthetic appreciation of art. In 2001, he founded the Institute of Neuroesthetics, based mainly in Berkeley, California.